Is Intermittent Fasting (IF) Really Effective?
Calvin has been a writer in the nutrition space for over 10 years. His works are composed of health topics that talk about fasting and the various types of diets such as keto, plant-based, and paleo. His interest covers how various diets can prevent diabetes and other common chronic diseases in the US.
Calvin has been a writer in the nutrition space for over 10 years. His works are composed of health topics that talk about fasting and the various types of diets such as keto, plant-based, and paleo.
Intermittent Fasting (IF) is one of the most popular nutrition trends that involves alternating cycles of eating and fasting. It’s an ancient dietary concept that was popularized in 2012, when Dr. Michael Mosley featured it in Eat Fast, Live Longer, a BBC documentary, and The Fast Diet, a book about fasting. Since then, many fitness programs and self-help books have talked about this nutrition trend and spread the word of its effects to the body.1,2
It’s often believed by experts that intermittent fasting can provide health benefits such as improved metabolism, stronger immune system, longevity, enhanced heart and brain function, weight loss, and many others.3,4 With all of these said, what really makes it effective and how does it work?
Intermittent fasting is basically an alternating cycle of eating and fasting. This usually involves fasting for 16 hours and eating within an 8-hour window in a day or doing two sets of 24-hour fasting in a week. Unlike other dietary methods, this doesn't specify what food to eat, but when you should eat them.
Also, this method is only the modern version of how people eat in ancient times. Before, our ancestors didn’t have ways to preserve food yet and would frequently go for long periods of time without eating. This developed their ability to hold hunger for survival. This actually makes eating regularly (3-4 meals a day) more unusual compared to occasional fasting.5
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Intermittent fasting is more of an alternating cycle of eating and fasting. This has been existing since ancient times when our ancestors can’t preserve food yet or don’t have available food.
Doing intermittent fasting is allowing your body to experience an acute, short-term stress. It is a healthy amount of discomfort that is beneficial to your body, like how exercise is good for your health.6 In general, it helps to detoxify the organs, rejuvenate the tissues, and cure hormonal imbalances. More specifically, here’s why you should undergo intermittent fasting:7
In reality, intermittent fasting helps to set the platform for the health benefits by correcting internal imbalances and restoring damaged cells and tissues first. Once the organs are in top shape, health benefits start to manifest. Here are some of the common health benefits:8
If done right, intermittent fasting can unlock health benefits for a more pristine state of well-being. But before you indulge in it, listen first to your body to gauge if you can endure long hours of not eating. Or better yet, seek your physician’s advice if it suits your current health status.
IF helps the body to recover at a molecular level. This allows the bodily systems to function correctly and be more active in improving one's health.
Fasting in general affects the body on a molecular level. It neutralizes hormonal imbalances to boost metabolism and to help burn stored fat more effectively. This also activates cell repair processes to restore tissue and organ function, leading to rich health benefits. To have a closer look, here’s what happens when you fast:12
These are fasting duration options that you can incorporate with your intermittent fasting plan. But for starters, a full-on fasting could be challenging―that’s why doing it intermittently is the way to go. It helps you eat fewer while increasing your metabolic rate by 3.6-14%, allowing your body to burn calories faster. Besides, its whole point is to bring insulin levels lower, burn fats faster, and trigger its health benefits without starving yourself.13
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Fasting does great wonders to the body depending on how long the duration is. Incorporating it alternately to eating patterns helps metabolism, leading to reduced insulin levels and weight loss.
A 2014 study found out that intermittent fasting can help you lose 3-8% of weight in 3 to 24 weeks, a lot more remarkable compared to other weight loss approaches. The respondents also lost 4-7% waist circumference which is a sign of a significant decrease in belly fat that is harmful to the organs and causes different diseases.14
Also, a research in 2019 proves that eating within 6 hours and fasting for the next 18 hours makes your metabolism rely on ketones instead of glucose. This means that the stored fats will be used up as an energy source for metabolism. This yields to increased longevity, stress resistance, and enhanced immunity to diseases such as obesity and cancer.15
Though it seems to be promising, studies for intermittent fasting are still in the early stages. Many other findings were either conducted on animals, small scale, or short term. This calls for the need for a higher quality of research that is primarily geared towards discovering more specific effects to the human body.16
Intermittent fasting affects the body inside and out. While proven effective by science, more studies are still needed to further prove its benefits to health.
The common misconception about intermittent fasting is comparing it to starvation, which is not true. Their key differentiator is the control as to when to consume food. Starvation is an imbalance between the food you take and the energy you consume. This is due to the involuntary skipping of food intake due to illnesses and food availability. This could lead to severe suffering or even death.17
In contrast, it is voluntarily abstaining from food intake within a period of time to boost health, to keep a spiritual duty, or for other reasons. This is normally done by people who are not underweight or have enough body fat deposits to sustain energy while at fast. Doing it properly leads to health rejuvenation and will not cause suffering or death.18
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Intermittent fasting is not the same as starvation. It is a conscious effort to abstain from food and aid health rejuvenation, while starvation is the involuntary absence of food that does nothing good to the body.
Intermittent fasting and Ketogenic (or keto) diet are just two of the most popular health trends today. Both are effective for weight loss and regulating health conditions but they still differ in a lot of ways. Here are three things that make them different from each other:19
Both give almost the same and health benefits but many are still skeptical in doing them simultaneously. Experts debunk this by proving that keto reduces hunger and food cravings while fasting intermittently. On the side, intermittent fasting raises the level of ketones in the body allowing it to burn fat and decrease appetite. This helps the body to transition more easily to ketosis and at the same time lose more fat during the process.21
Though very enticing, intermittent fasting and keto are not for everyone. People with diabetes and heart illness should seek first the doctor’s opinion before starting IF and keto diet simultaneously. Doing so without proper guidance may lead to adverse reactions like carb-loading on non-fasting periods, fatigue, irritation, or disease complications. To add, pregnant or breastfeeding women and those who had eating disorders before should avoid intermittent fasting as it may do more harm than help.22
IF is an eating pattern while keto is a type of low-carb diet. They are proven to work well if done simultaneously but still need professional guidance to know if it fits someone’s health condition.
Intermittent fasting comes into different alternating patterns of fasting and eating. The main thing that you have the most control of is chunking the time of the day (or days of the week) that you want to allocate for abstaining from food. Here are some of the popular methods that you can choose from:
The 16/8 method is probably the most popular among the three as it is the most attainable method for everyone. But take note, regardless of the IF method you choose, eating excessively on non-fasting periods defeats their purpose, so make sure to still keep track of your calorie intake when you break your fasting.23
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Intermittent fasting has different forms that involve portioning hours or days for fasting periods. Regardless of the method, keeping track of calorie intake is still necessary to make your IF method of choice effective.
As mentioned, intermittent fasting is not for everyone. Doing it without knowing your current health condition and at the same time, if you’re not informed how to do it properly, you might just harm your body. To give you a heads up, here are the conditions that might not work well with IF:24
These don’t mean that you can’t do intermittent fasting anymore. To be more certain, consult your doctor for the best health method to aid your fitness. Meanwhile, getting doctor’s opinion is a must once you decided to undergo IF but also have these medical conditions:25
You can never go wrong with IF. Problems only arise if you indulge in it without the proper guidance while being unfit for it. Remember that it is a conscious choice to take this eating pattern so better yet do it correctly with your doctor’s advice for you to avoid side effects.25
Intermittent fasting might make or break your well-being, depending on your current health status. Consult a physician first before starting to know if you are fit to undergo this fitness method.
With all these being said, intermittent fasting proves to be an effective fitness trend not just for weight loss but also for regulating known diseases. Though beneficial to the body, it still has potential dangers to health if done without proper caution. To avoid this, asking your doctor's opinion is very important to help you gauge if you are fit to undergo intermittent fasting or not.
